Buckle up: Roughly $15 trillion of market cap is set to report earnings in a span of less than 36 hours.
This Wednesday and Thursday are setting up to be an absolute whirlwind, with Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple all checking in on Wednesday and Thursday.
It’s not just the size of the companies reporting. They’re also in the middle of the ongoing AI debate, meaning a good or bad earnings report will be felt well beyond their share price.
With so much on the line, I had to bring in the big guns.
I asked five of my esteemed colleagues who follow these companies closely to share what’s worth keeping an eye on. I’ve also linked their names to their BI profiles so you can subscribe and get notified when their next story drops.
Let’s dive in:
Wednesday
Alphabet — Hugh Langley: It’s all eyes on Cloud. While Google’s cloud business has long trailed Amazon’s and Microsoft’s, it’s getting some major AI tailwinds. It has new business from OpenAI and Meta, among others, and just landed a blockbuster deal with Anthropic that will tap Google’s in-house TPU chips.
Investors have been waiting for Google’s TPUs to hit prime time because they could be a huge threat to Nvidia’s business. So eyes and ears will be peeled this week for any clues about where that business is headed — and just how much momentum Cloud has at this moment.
Meta — Pranav Dixit: How many billions does it take to build an AI empire? Mark Zuckerberg seems determined to find out. He’s financing a $30 billion data center in Louisiana and spending literal billions poaching AI talent from rivals like Google DeepMind and Apple. On its last earnings call, Meta said it expects to shell out up to $72 billion this year on AI infrastructure.
All of this is fueled by advertising, so this week Zuckerberg will need to convince investors that the ad engine can still bankroll the AI madness. I’ll be watching to see how he sells his “personal superintelligence” reset and whether investors have the patience for another moonshot just a few years after the metaverse.
Microsoft — Ashley Stewart: What is happening with Microsoft’s OpenAI deal? The thing everyone wants to know about Microsoft won’t be answered in this week’s earnings. As Morgan Stanley recently noted, uncertainty around OpenAI is a key focus for investors, but it’s unlikely Microsoft will spill any details during the call.
Absent any indications about OpenAI, Wall Street will be keeping a close eye on whether Microsoft can keep up growth in its Azure cloud business.
Thursday
Amazon — Eugene Kim: The spotlight’s on AWS. Can Amazon’s cloud giant kick revenue growth back into gear after hovering around 17% for the last two quarters? With capacity constraints easing and its Anthropic partnership about to pay off, optimism is creeping in.
Still, Wall Street is calling AWS an AI laggard, and investors want to know how Amazon plans to close the gap.
Apple — Alistair Barr: When everyone is freaking out about the tech industry spending a BAZILLION dollars on AI chips and data centers, it’s reassuring to know that at least one Big Tech company has completely missed this trend.
Apple sells iPhones, and people have to buy them when their current iPhone gets too old. This means Apple makes billions of dollars every quarter. The end.
